Thursday, November 30, 2006

(And if you think I'm referring to any Ho in particular you should be ashamed of yourself, it's the Christmas season for crissake. Have some dignity.)

Bows and mistletoe and presents for pretty girls. Fat, jolly men in red suits with screaming children wetting themselves on Santa's lap. Sugar cookies and Christmas cards...

Christmas cards?!

Fuuuuuuuu-uuuuuuuuuck.

This time last year I was so ahead of the game. I had Chicky's portrait professionally done and made into cards that were pre-signed so I wouldn't get writer's cramp writing out "Happy Holidays! Love, the Chickys".

Uh, shut up about the Happy Holidays crap. Yes, I put that on my cards, just so my Jewish friends wouldn't bust my balls about the Christmas wishes. So sue me for wanting to include everyone in the holiday love.

Anyhoo.

This is our second Christmas with the Toddler Tornado and I've become a bit - what's the word? Lax? Nah. Lazy? Yeah, that's it. Lazy, and I haven't ordered cards or, hell, I hadn't even thought about cards. And? I love Christmas cards. I love sending them and I really love receiving them. It becomes my obsession from December 1st until the 24th; stalking the mailbox, weeding through the bills and the major holiday push catalogues, throwing SuperSaver fliers in the snowbankings desperately looking for sparkly snow flakes and plump-cheeked newborn pictures. I rip the envelopes open before even hitting the front door and read the sweet, often-times canned sentiments inside.

So today Mr. C and I took Chicky outside (70 degrees today. Yeah, it's beginning to look not one little freakin' bit like Christmas) and snapped some pictures for this year's card. Let me know what you think.

The dimple slays me.

This one might be the keeper.

No, wait. This one. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. I made that.

We took almost 200 pictures and even though there were a lot of throw away shots there were enough good ones to make the choice very difficult. But I think we may have narrowed it down. I think this one should be 2006's holiday card from the Chicky family:

Yep, that pretty much sums up 2006. Can you imagine finding that in your mailbox, between the electric bill and the Pottery Barn catalogue? Yeah, me too.

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Before I forget, today is Mr. C's birthday. My sweet, handsome man was born on this day 34 years ago. How could I not wish the man who helped me create that beautiful, screaming creature a Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday?

I almost peed myself laughing at the last picture. I think I need to do some more kegels.Thanks for giving me a reason to laugh this morning! Would it be shameless to do a collage of ALL of the pictures for your Christmas card ;)?

You could definitely send one of those cards to our house and be safe. See, we make fun of the people on those Christmas cards - we're ruthless. We even make fun of the kids. But Chicky is safe, too cute to be laughed at. Unless you send the last one, then we'd really be laughing with you.

Too hard to choose!! If I send you my address, can I get a card? I LOVE-cubed Christmas cards and not many people send them anymore and rarely with pictures. I'll send you one of ours in exchange! (If I can get off my ASS and write the letter already!)

Happy Birthday Mr. C! You are one lucky dude to have Mrs. C and Baby C.

Ummmm those pictures are so darn cute that there are going to be exploding heads regardless of which one you select. I'm serious, if I got that in the mail I'd melt. But the last one seems to sum up our year too.

You joke but one year we did use a screaming, crying photo of my son on our christmas card. it said, "'Ben' a little naughty this year?" (his name is Ben) and then on the inside it said something about the power of still making holiday dreams come true despite the naughty list. It was a bit "catchier" than that but it was about 5 years ago and my memory barely extends past 5 minutes ago. Absent a goofy message like the one we did, my favorite is the one that says "oh, wait. this one." the close up. it's amazing!

Thanks for always giving me my "laugh of the day" - the crying pic is priceless! You should use that as your headline for -- "Why I Don't Have Anymore Children" -- referring to this week's blog talk radio debate.

I love Christmas cards as well. I've got the cards and the stamps. Just need a pic and something to write in the cards. I'll be doing my boy's photo shoot this weekend and taking tons of pics no doubt. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to be a snowman. hee hee

LOVE those shots of Chicky baby. I think the snapshots make the best holiday photo cards (Yes, I said holiday too. We have Jewish friends too.). Just go to Walgreen's and you can have a boatload of pics ready in like an hour!

i would use the last one, with a caption like, 'it's beginning to look a lot like nap time' or 'she just found out she's not getting that pony' or something like that, but um, i don't even celebrate christmas, so maybe don't listen to me.

Ohgodohgod, thanks for the hold on to your ovaries warning, you're a real friend.

Maybe it's a first year mom thing because all of our cards are ordered (They say "may all your dreams come true in the new year" on the inside, talk about not offending any religion!). E-mail me your address and you'll get a beauty from me. :-)Assuming your mail carrier doesn't toss it in the snow.

Oh please use the last picture! It's just too funny (not to minimize her pain, obviously it was a hard moment for her...)

You could put something like- "Holidays stressing you out?" Then put the picture of her crying, then when you open the card it can have that cute first picture of her with the dimples and it can say something like, "Don't worry, New Year's Eve will be here in a flash, CHEERS!!! This is (of course) where you would insert cute drawings of martini or champagne glasses.

...and probably all 50 commenters said this already, but there's no way I'm reading them all to find out: Your daughter is absolutely beautiful.

Don't you just love the photo sessions, trying to get the perfect shot?? I love the 3rd one and like someone above said, I chuckled when I saw the last. You should definitely save it for blackmail purposes later!